Prof. Schmidt’s article is a reply to a criticism of his work on the
ethics of the ancient Greeks which had appeared in the _International
Journal of Ethics_.
Dr. Adler’s article is the introductory lecture of his course on Moral
Instruction before the School of Applied Ethics at Plymouth. He refers
first to the difficulty in the way of combining moral and religious
instruction in the public schools arising from the difference in
religious belief of the tax payers, and to the devices suggested to
circumvent the difficulty. The first of these devices is that Catholics,
Dissenters, and Jews, shall formulate a common platform of belief. There
are two obvious objections to this proposal. It would leave out of
account the party of the agnostics and be a gross injustice to them, and
it would never content the really religious minds of any denomination. It
would be acceptable only to the comparatively small class of so-called
rationalists or theists pure and simple, and they have no right under
the specious plea of reconciling the various creeds, in effect, to force
their own creed upon the rest of the community. The second device is that
religious and moral instruction combined shall be given in the public
schools by persons of the several denominations. The high authority of
Germany is invoked in favor of that system but Dr. Adler states that the
example of Germany cannot be quoted as a precedent owing to the relation
between the state and the schools in that country. The system, moreover
is not a happy one as, agreeably to Professor Smith’s propositions that
scientific instruction must be unsectarian and religious instruction must
be sectarian, the latter ought to have no place in state schools, at
least in a country where the separation of church and state is complete.
To the third arrangement proposed, that each sect should build its own
schools, and draw upon the fund supplied by taxation according to the
number of children which it educates, there are two objections. Owing to
the power of sects and their influence, direct and indirect, the rules
and regulations prescribed by the state for the schools to conform to
would not be enforced. And secondly, the purpose for which the public
school exists would be defeated, as the sectarian schools tend to prevent
the growth of that national unit which it is the very business of the
public school to create and foster. The correct answer to the question
as to the way in which to impart moral instruction so as to satisfy
all parties will be the solution of the problem of unsectarian moral
education. The answer is: It is the business of the moral instructor
in the school to deliver to his pupil the subject matter of morality,
but not to deal with the sanctions of it; to give his pupils a clear
understanding of what is right and what is wrong, but not to enter into
the question why the right should be done and the wrong avoided. The
conscience can be enlightened, strengthened, and always without once
raising the question why. Professor Adler, it appears to us, overlooks
the intimate connection between the two questions of what is wrong, and
why is it wrong. With the “why,” which is the moral sanction so-called,
he excludes the criterion of right and wrong and confines himself to
conventional morality. Professor Adler proposes, that the material for
the moral lessons should be “the stock of moral truths accepted by all
good men.” This would be a very simple solution of the ethical problem.
Mankind need no longer remain in doubt as to what good and bad is.
We have only to accept the propositions of “all good men.” But where
is the judge that shall decide who are to be considered as good men?
Either Professor Adler considers his own views of moral goodness as
authoritative and ultimate or his reasoning moves in a vicious circle.
Professor Tönnies and the Rev. Hastings Rashdall discuss punishment as a
preventive of crime. Professor Adams finds that the genius of invention
established the factory system replacing the old domestic system of
industry. The change of a society based upon tools into a society based
upon machinery means that the worker has lost control over the conditions
of labor which he now tries to regain. Arthur Fairbanks says that
according to the ethics of Sophokles, conscience was sense of conformity
to an æsthetic ideal. J. Platter of Zürich rejects Henry George’s theory
as “nonsense.” (Philadelphia: _International Journal of Ethics_, 1602
Chestnut Street.)
ωκ.
RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. September and October, 1891.